TONIGHT 👇🏽 www.eventbrite.com/e/incorporat...

Timeline post 42: 2000 – The Book of Prefaces Published. Alasdair Gray’s ambitious, gorgeously designed literary history—told through prefaces from the 7th–20th century—was 16 years in the making and met with instant acclaim.

Hello October! Our latest newsletter is now live on Substack. Catch up on everything from September and see what’s ahead for October. alasdairgrayarchive.substack.com?fbclid=PARlR...

Join us Sat 4 Oct for Of Us & Others by Maya Rose Edwards — a one-day film screening at Civic House (12–5pm). A moving work on queer kinship, place & imagined futures. Drop in anytime, with support from the Edwin Morgan Trust & @creativescots.bsky.social

We had a wonderful tour today, including members of the Friends of Whitehill Secondary School, who generously gifted us Alasdair’s commemorative quaich - presented to him when he received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018! #alasdairgray #thealasdairgrayarchive

Free guided tours of The City exhibition, exploring queer, working-class Glasgow through archives and community stories. Tours: Oct 3 & Nov 7, 1pm. Book: [email protected]

Welcome AGA’s New Trustees!
We’re delighted to welcome Cole Collins, Jade (Stout) Sneddon & Andrew Leitch to our Board. They bring vital expertise in EDI, data analysis & capital investment to help grow and support AGA’s mission. Find out more on our website!

Welcome AGA’s New Trustees!
We’re delighted to welcome Cole Collins, Jade (Stout) Sneddon & Andrew Leitch to our Board. They bring vital expertise in EDI, data analysis & capital investment to help grow and support AGA’s mission. Find out more on our website!

Great to have 4th year GSA Com Des students visit today with tutor Marc Baines, pictured here with our Curatorial Assistant Holly Rennie Brown. Thanks for coming by! #alasdairgray #thealasdairgrayarchive

Join us for Archive tours this Oct–Dec, led by @sorchadallas.bsky.social & Holly Rennie Brown. Explore Gray’s legacy & handle our sensitively curated collection Book via link in bio or email [email protected]✨

Proud of our CDA Lauren Forde who screened their new film this evening, made this summer whilst at Met Film School, Berlin, with support from @sgsah.bsky.social. Excited to see how Lauren will apply her learning to her final film as part of her research thesis 👏

Finally read Heather Parry’s Orpheus Builds a Girl—a chilling, brilliant gothic novel. Twisted love, control, and obsession meet razor-sharp critique. Fans of @agrayarchive.bsky.social’s Poor Things will love it too, highly recommend.

Timeline 41: 1998 – Working Legs Commissioned by Birds of Paradise Theatre, this play centered disabled performers, using wit and theatricality to explore how society—not bodies—creates disability.

Delighted to welcome OpenGate Productions as they filmed our Custodian, @sorchadallas.bsky.social, for Makers of Glasgow, a new series celebrating the city's creative scene. Stay tuned for the full video — coming soon!

Timeline Post 40: 1997 – Why Scots Should Rule Scotland Published Gray revised his 1992 text for the 1997 election, arguing for a Scottish government. Updated with new chapters, it urged support for independence and democratic self-rule.

Link here - www.eventbrite.com/e/incorporat...

📣 FREE webinar + resource launch! ‘Memoir & Biography Writing: Towards Inclusion & Social Justice’ 🗓️ Sept 30, 6:30–8pm. With @sorchadallas.bsky.social @rodgeglass.bsky.social & Lucy Lauder. Sign up via Eventbrite – link in bio! 🙏🎉 #webinar #memoir

Day 2 of Doors Open Day ✅ Huge thanks to all who came! Incredible feedback on the collection’s accessibility, curation, and kids' activities. A friendly, inspiring, and engaging experience all round! #alasdairgray #thealasdairgrayarchive

Visited @agrayarchive.bsky.social today for the Glasgow Doors Open Days festival and it was really lovely - a great space (recreating Gray's room as part of the archive) with fascinating things to see. Really appreciate the 'living archive' approach to maintaining it too. We'll definitely return!

Glasgow Doors Open Day 1 ✅ Thanks to everyone who stopped by—little artists, babies, old pals of Alasdair, new faces & even a mural discovery! Great day. Roll on Day 2! #alasdairgray #thealasdairgrayarchive

Next in our timeline: No. 39 – Mavis Belfrage (1996). Originally titled Agnes Belfrage, Gray changed it after input from writer Agnes Owens. His least fantastical work, it explores love and working-class life from the '50s–'90s. #alasdairgray #thealasdairgrayarchive

Timeline post 1995 – A History Maker Published. Gray’s satirical novel explored war, gender, and history. That year he also painted a mural in Abbot House, blending Dunfermline’s past with personal touches and wit.

To mark The City exhibition at AGA (on until Nov 13), this playlist celebrates songs tied to life in Glasgow—tracks that carry memory, place, and connection. Thanks to all who contributed! The show explores queer, working-class stories across the city. #thecity #alasdairgray

Excited to share a new film from The City project, co-curated by Holly Rennie Brown with queer, working-class voices from Glasgow. Made at AGA with @creativescots.bsky.social’s support. Watch now on The Alasdair Gray Archive YouTube—link in bio! 💜 #TheCity

We were delighted to welcome the brilliant & @heatherparry.bsky.social to the archive this afternoon. Originally from South Yorkshire and now based in Glasgow, Heather is a writer and editor & her latest novel, Carrion Crow, is one of our favourite reads of 2026. Thanks for stopping by!

DOORS OPEN DAYS – FULLY BOOKED! We’re thrilled to welcome 250+ guests to the Alasdair Gray Archive on Sept 20–21 for Doors Open Day! If you can’t attend, please return your ticket via Eventbrite. Missed out? Join the waitlist—returned tickets will be reallocated.

The City exhibition opened today, running until 13th November, mapping Glasgow through a queer, working-class lens. Devised by AGA’s Curatorial Assistant (supported by @creativescots.bsky.social) Holly Rennie Brown with a new zine commission by Elouise Blackburn, come visit!

Pls Share 👉🏽sign up via Eventbrite to join our FREE webinar on 30.09.25 @ 6.30pm supported by @sgsah.bsky.social with @sorchadallas.bsky.social @rodgeglass.bsky.social & Lucy Lauder - launching a new resource on memoir & biography writing as a tool for research and self-led creative projects 👇🏽

Timeline 37: 1993 - TEN TALES TALL & TRUE PUBLISHED, contains thirteen stories—each one a tall tale, fewer still entirely true—blending genres such as social realism, sexual comedy, fantasy, and satire to create a work that is both original and delightfully eccentric.

Timeline 36: 1992 - POOR THINGS PUBLISHED to immediate critical success winning both the Whitbread Novel Award & Guardian Book of the Year. The book was the greatest commercial success for Gray’s & was adapted in 2023 by Yorgos Lanthimos into a film.

Of Us & Others is the result of our inaugural visual art Creative Commission with Maya Rose Edwards, supported by @creativescots.bsky.social Open Fund & @edmorgantrust.bsky.social Edward’s new film will screen for one day at Civic House, 04.10.25, from 12–5pm, on a rolling loop so pop in anytime!

A real treat to welcome the brilliant @kirstininnes.bsky.social to AGA today and to show her the @aowensarchive.bsky.social archive collection ❤️ #alasdairgray #agnesowens #thealasdairgrayarchive #theagnesowensarchive

Timeline post 35: 1991 - MARRIES MORAG MCALPINE. As Morag noted when reflecting on their marriage years later, “I think we probably had quite lonely times before we met. And we now know the value of being together.” You can learn about Morag when visiting the archive.

⭐ Host a PhD Researcher in 2026 ⭐ We support paid internships & artist residencies, enabling Arts & Humanities researchers to spend up to 3 months with an organisation. Benefit from expertise, creativity & fresh perspectives – while supporting future research leaders! 👉 www.sgsah.ac.uk/e_t/i_ar/

Alasdair Gray, 1982 by Jim Cunningham #alasdairgray #thealasdairgrayarchive

Photo by Jim Cunningham, Alasdair is blurry because he was moving whilst drawing Jim’s son Jamie, Jamie is sitting on Alasdair’s green chair, now at AGA & the bed has a patchwork quilt made of the Donaldson’s fabric which features in a portrait of Gray’s son from 1972.

Alasdair in 1982 at his Kersland Street bedsit by Jim Cunningham captures a particular view of his room which features his desk, the same one he found by his back bins in the early 1970s which then travelled with him to all his subsequent homes, and now resides with us at the archive!

What a treat to welcome photographer Jim Cunningham, who knew Alasdair from the 1980s onwards, photographing him at different points over the years which he generously gifted to us. He was also involved in helping Alasdair document his work for the A Life in Pictures.

Hullo September!  Our latest monthly newsletter is out now on Substack.  Join us for a look back over August and a glance at what’s coming up in September. Link in bio to join!

Timeline 33: 1989 - OLD NEGATIVES PUBLISHED, this was Alasdair’s first collection of poetry, pulled together from works produced since 1952 onwards. The works explore themes of “modern states of love, faith, language” through a poetics of absence and negation.

Timeline post 31: 1986 - 5 ARTISTS RETROSPECTIVE SHOW featured the work of the original members of the Glasgow Group. The show had enormous emotional significance due to Fletcher’s posthumous inclusion. Gray self funded it & was frustrated by the lack of coverage & sales.

‘The City’ exhibition programme, curated by AGA’s new curatorial assistant, Holly Rennie Brown draws inspiration from our growing collection of curated boxes. Holly’s role has been supported by @creativescots.bsky.social & their project explores Glasgow through a queer, working class lens👇🏽

Two of my favourites🫶! THE MIRACLE OF THE BURD AND THE FISHES ach sun jiss keepyir chin up dizny day gonabootlika hawf shut knife inaw jiss cozzy a burd luvur day yi ach well gee it a wee while sun thirz a loat merr fish in thi sea From: www.tomleonard.co.uk/online-poetr...

Happy Birthday Tom Leonard! Born in 1944, today would have been Tom's 81st birthday. During his studies of English & Scottish Literature at The University of Glasgow, Tom met Alasdair Gray and the pair became part of Philip Hobsbaum's writing group. Alasdair & Tom went on to write about Glasgow,

Timeline post, 1985 - The first of Gray’s older screenplays, The Fall of Kelvin Walker, was published. Lean Tales is also, running short on ideas he enlisted the help of James Kelman and @aowensarchive.bsky.social, each contributing equally to the project with Gray portraiting them all.

We had a fun and inspiring afternoon on Friday with Tony Tulathimutte, who was joined by fellow writers Elle Nash and @rodgeglass.bsky.social. Tony’s new book Rejection has been gaining critical praise - great to explore it and discuss the influence of Alasdair Gray.

Some snaps from the @tonytula.com X @agrayarchive.bsky.social event this afternoon with @rodgeglass.bsky.social and @ellenash.bsky.social. I thought I was going to faint during the reading of Ahegao but it was the perfect icebreaker.

We welcomed 25 postgraduate researchers yesterday for a workshop which explored incorporating memoir and biography writing towards social justice and inclusion. This session was supported by @sgsah.bsky.social & delivered by @rodgeglass.bsky.social @sorchadallas.bsky.social and Lucy Lauder.

PLEASE SHARE 🙏 Come visit us in September! Tours led by Custodian @sorchadallas.bsky.social and our Curatorial Assistant Holly Rennie Brown. ➡️September 5th, 12th, 19th 27th at 11am To secure a space please email [email protected] with your preferred date.